It was the two eyes peering out from the thick foliage that caught my attention. Dark, unblinking. The rain was beating down steadily, saturating the black soil and creating pools of gooey ooze, and I sank in to the tops of my boots with each step. Soaked and tired, I was slowly making my way through a kipuka — a tropical oasis surrounded by a sea of jagged lava — deep within the wilderness on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Were they really eyes? Maybe my tired mind was playing tricks on me. I took off my backpack, lay my rifle against a moss-covered stump and got down on my knees, then crawled on my belly into the dripping brush for a better look. The eyes were still there. They blinked. A pig? If so, how big? Better back off, just in case — the dark eyes were only a dozen feet away.

I retreated and sat down next to my pack. The dark eyes moved a few feet closer. I crouched down again for a better view. In fits and starts, the eyes came closer and closer, and then a trembling, soaked, bloodstained dog emerged from the dense brush. When I extended my hand, the dog turned her head away from me and lay on her side.

I sat down next to her and moved my head so that her eyes could meet mine. She turned away from me again. I stroked the back of her head, ready to withdraw if she showed signs of aggression. But though she was shaking, she remained in place, and I continued to stroke her head and speak in soft, reassuring tones. She wore no collar, no tags. Her paws were raw and covered in blood, and there were open wounds on her neck and shoulders.

This kipuka was just outside a rain forest where wild boar roamed in abundance, destroying the fragile native ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing on the Big Island. It is the wild boar that hunters seek, but the region is so remote and so difficult to access that few venture in. I was one of those hunters — my pack full of survival gear and meat, rifle in one hand and walking stick in the other, 12 hours of brutal hiking behind me.

The few other hunters who were willing to make the effort use dogs, in the Hawaiian tradition, and it seemed likely that this was a hunting dog who had wandered away and become lost. Or maybe she wasn’t performing up to par and the hunter had abandoned her. Either way, it was obvious she would not survive long on her own. The dog rolled slowly onto her back, all four ravaged paws in the air. I rubbed her belly and she looked up at me. Two dark eyes, unblinking.

Cold rain was falling, and I had an hour of hiking along a vague and sometimes nonexistent trail of slippery lava rock and mud ahead of me, and an hour until darkness set in; my pack was full, my body was worn. In this remote area, there was no cell phone coverage and so no way to let my wife, Kim, know where I was. If I spent the night with the dog, my wife, fearing the worst, would call search and rescue. If I left my pack behind and carried the dog and then ran into trouble along the trail — broken ankle, hypothermia, disorientation — I would have to activate my emergency radio beacon, which would alert a search-andrescue service that would pinpoint my location and send in a rescue helicopter. In this horrible weather — clouds, rain, poor visibility — the rescue team would be at risk, and if something tragic happened, it would be my fault.

I unrolled my poncho and fashioned a crude shelter, tying the corners to pieces of brush, adequate to keep out most of the rain. I then opened my three remaining packages of field rations and poured the contents onto some moss beneath the poncho. The dog immediately crawled under the shelter and attacked the food. Two or three minutes later, not a morsel remained. I poured water into my cupped hand and held it out to her. She lapped it up and licked my palm. I repeated this a dozen times and she drank every drop I offered.

The rain beat against the poncho and the wind began to blow down off the slopes of Mauna Loa on its way to the sea. It was noticeably darker when I shouldered my backpack, picked up my rifle and turned to leave. The dog crawled after me for a few yards and then stopped. She barked twice, two soft yelps. I turned and looked back at her. Two dark eyes, unblinking.

It was nine at night by the time I got home and told Kim the story. She tilted her head and stared at me.
Two blue eyes, unblinking.
“You left her out in the middle of nowhere? In the rain?”
“I couldn’t carry her. I was already overloaded and exhausted. I never would have made it out.”
“So you just left her?”
“I built her a shelter.”
“And then you left her.”
I showered, ate dinner and went to bed. There was no conversation, only silence. As I stared at the ceiling fan, all I could see were two dark eyes, unblinking.

My wife woke up shortly after midnight, alone. I was driving south along the coast on my way back to the trailhead. The rain was still pouring and the wind was still blowing. I took a potholed road up into the mountains and pulled off at the trailhead, shouldered my backpack — this time much lighter, since I was carrying only basic survival gear and my sleeping bag — adjusted my headlamp and started up the trail. I slipped often and fell hard twice and thought all the while just what a foolish quest this was. But the two dark eyes haunted me and I kept trudging until I came to the kipuka and the poncho shelter.

No dog.

I looked around but found nothing. Suddenly, frantic barking came from beneath a stunted ohia tree 15 yards away. I turned and the light from my headlamp illuminated two eyes. I walked toward the tree, but the dog crawled frantically backward into the thick foliage. The closer I moved, the farther away the dog crawled. Afraid she would injure herself, I untied the poncho, spread it out on the ground, lay my sleeping bag on top and crawled in.

I drifted in and out of sleep; each time I woke, I shined the headlamp where the dog had been and each time the still-crouching dog was several feet closer. I was in the twilight zone between reality and dream when I felt something nudging the sleeping bag. Then, a warm tongue lapped the side of my face. I unzipped the sleeping bag and she crawled in with me, shaking violently. I zipped up the bag and held her close. The shaking slowly subsided and the two of us fell asleep, her head next to mine.

I hiked out at first light, carrying the dog in my arms. Back at the truck, I bundled her in beach towels and put her gently on the floor behind the passenger seat. As she rested, I took out the piece of plywood and felt pen I had brought from home and printed, in bold letters:

DOG FOUND. BROWN AND WHITE FEMALE.

I added my home phone number and nailed the plywood to a tree alongside the road.

Kim was waiting when I pulled into our driveway. I handed her the toweled bundle and the dog immediately licked her face. We went inside and Kim called our vet. Four months later, Laka (a name from Hawaiian mythology) — healed, spayed, microchipped and the happiest dog on earth — graduated from obedience school, albeit at the bottom of her class, since she much preferred to chase butterflies and play than to obey commands. Her relationship with our other two dogs — Gypsy, the Brittany, and Penny Lane, the Dachshund — had evolved from daily fireworks to a fragile détente to having her own place on the couch, sandwiched between Gypsy and Penny Lane.

Then the call came. Kim handed me the phone.

“Hello,” I said.
The voice on the other end was male.
“You found my dog. I saw the sign on the side of the road.”

I felt my knees weaken. It had been four months since I found Laka but I had never gone back to remove the plywood sign.

“How long ago did you lose her?” I asked.
“’Bout five months. Got her at the pound. She a scared kinda dog and it was her first hunt. I saw your sign ’bout a month after she run off.”

Five months ago. That meant Laka had survived on her own for a month in a hostile environment, living on vegetation and fetid water.

“What happened?” I asked.
“Pig got her and she get cut up pretty bad. She run away.” “Can you describe her?” I asked.

He described her perfectly, right down to the wounds on her neck and shoulders and her weight of about 18 pounds. My heart sank. I looked over at Laka, lying on the couch between Gypsy and Penny Lane. Three pairs of dark eyes, unblinking.

“I’m sure sorry,” I said. “The dog I found weighs about 45 pounds and she was in great shape when I found her. No wounds at all.”

I hung up the phone and went into the garage. Grabbing a hammer from the workbench, I went back into the house, picked up my keys and wallet, and walked toward the door. Kim knew where I was going. Three hours later, I pulled back into our driveway, the plywood sign in the bed of the truck. I tossed the sign into the trash can and went inside the house.

The four women in my life were on the couch, watching television. They all looked up at me: four pairs of eyes — three pairs dark and one pair blue. Three of the women wagged their tails and the fourth one smiled.